


Collapsing Star

by destiny919, MagicalSpaceDragon



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, M/M, Operation Kuron, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, [iasip music] "the gang loses keith", not there so much yet but trust us folks it's coming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-01-23 16:42:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12511748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destiny919/pseuds/destiny919, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicalSpaceDragon/pseuds/MagicalSpaceDragon
Summary: "Keith? Deep cover? The boy has trouble following orders, Yellow Paladin. He's very poorly suited to that kind of operation. Besides, he said Voltron needed him.""He said theBladeneeded him," Pidge says."Oh my fucking god," Matt says. "That little motherfucker. Heleft."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is born of salt and love and bitter longings. It's based on a theory we developed mid-season, after "Black Site." There are both benefits and drawbacks to not binging the whole thing in one go, and sometimes they're the same thing.

"Sooo," Matt says, "where's Keith?"

Shiro looks up at him, surprised. "He's on a mission with the Blade of Marmora."

Oh, that kind of makes sense. "When will he be back?"

Shiro shrugs. _Shrugs._

"You...you don't know?" Matt says incredulously.

"It's a deep cover mission," Shiro replies, nonsensically casual. "He said it could take months."

"Months?!" Matt sputters. "And you couldn't talk him out of going?" Why would Keith even be okay with being away from Shiro for that long, anyway? From Pidge's stories, they were as clingy as ever. Until this, anyway.

Blinking at him, Shiro says, "Why would I have talked him out of it? Voltron doesn't need him and they were going to be getting important intel."

What. The. Fuck.

"Okay," Matt says tightly, "maybe Voltron doesn't, but what about you?" Even if their married asses had somehow gone crazy and broken up, there's no way Shiro wouldn't at least still want Keith around as his friend. Especially since from the way he was acting any breakup couldn't have been too nasty. And when Matt says that, he means Shiro isn't curled up on the couch eating Chunky Monkey and watching When Harry Met Sally while crying.

Shiro looks at him strangely. "What about me?"

"Don't _you_ need Keith?" Matt demands, throwing subtlety to the void. "Even if you guys broke up, it couldn't have been _that_ bad!"

"Broke up?" Shiro is damnably confused. "I- I don't know."

"You don't _know?"_ Matt explodes. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Calm down, Matt," Shiro says harshly. "I have work to do." He turns away, back to the floating screens.

_What. The. Fuck._

Okay. Maybe _this_ was why Keith had been willing to leave Shiro for months on a deep cover mission. Something was seriously wrong. And if Keith had tried to fix it, and Shiro responded like this... Had that been going on after Shiro escaped the Galra and he was purportedly glued to Keith again? Had his time in the arena changed him so drastically? Had he broken up with Keith or had Keith broken up with him?

No. Keith never gave up. He would have kept trying unless it was absolutely clear that Shiro didn't want him to.

Which...

"Oh no," Matt mutters aloud.

Shiro doesn't hear him.

 

\---

 

"So. Pidge. Pidgeon. Pidgeotto," Matt says, slinging an arm around his sister's skinny shoulders.

"What, one stupid nickname isn't good enough for you anymore?" she sniffs.

"It's gone mainstream," Matt says disdainfully.

"You fucking hipster."

"Yup," he agrees, happy. He'd missed being insulted by his brilliant little sister as much as he'd missed anything else about her- a whole lot. "So, where's ol' Bambi at right now?"

Pidge blinks at him. "That friend of yours from the Garrison? Um, back on Earth, I assume?"

Matt withdraws his arm. "I thought he was on a deep cover mission."

"No, that's K-" Pidge whips her head around, glasses flying askew. "Wait, _Keith_ is Bambi?"

"Um, yeah?" Matt says with some disbelief. "Pidge, I was best friends with _Shiro._ Who the hell else would Bambi be?"

She hunches over defensively. "I don't know. Whatever. Anyway, if you know Keith is under deep cover, why are you asking me where he is?"

"Well, you're tracking him, aren't you?" Matt says, confused.

"Uh...no?"

"What? Aren't you worried about him?" he demands.

Pidge only shrugs. "Keith can take care of himself."

"Well, yeah, he _can,_ but that doesn't mean he _should,"_ Matt says. "Don't you know that? You've been friends with him for months now!"

"Not really." She shrugs again. "Keith's too much of a loner."

"What." What the fuck. "Pidge, why on Earth would you think that?"

"Why _not_ on Earth," she adds, and they both snicker. "I dunno. I didn't know him at the Garrison, but Lance and Hunk did, and they always said he was this lone wolf type."

 _"Did they,"_ Matt says dangerously. "Pidge. _I_ knew Keith at the Garrison, too."

"Oh yeah, you said Keith is Bambi," Pidge says. Then she stops. "Oh my gosh. _Keith is Bambi?"_

_"Yeah! "_

Pidge suddenly remembers all the shit she'd heard about Shiro and Bambi, Matt's other best friend, with the big dark eyes and skinny legs and intense demeanor and terribly transparent feelings for Shiro. Who cried easily and enjoyed hugs and ate half the cookies in the care package Pidge and Colleen had sent Matt at the Garrison once. The sensitive, love- and friendship-starved ace pilot whom Matt had told her about.

"Oh no," Pidge whispers.

"So," Matt says, "you didn't become friends with Keith because Lance and Hunk _convinced you not to?"_

"Kind of?" she admits helplessly. "They acted like they knew him really well! He and Lance were supposed to have been, like, rivals."

"Pidge," Matt says, "I can guarantee you, Keith didn't even know who Lance _was."_

"I'm beginning to get that, yeah!" she wails.

"Why didn't _you_ try and get to know Keith?" he asks. "You have a ton in common with him, you prickly little conspiracy theorists!"

"I don't know," she says, shifting around, like she did when holding back tears. "Lance's stupid rivalry thing made it kind of hard. They were the ones I knew, and I missed you, and Dad, and I was in space, fighting an evil empire, and I..."

"It's okay." Matt pulls her into a tight hug, and she sniffles. "It's not your fault. I just thought you knew better than to believe everything you hear, huh?"

"Oh," Pidge chokes out. "Whoops."

"Didn't Keith try to get to know _you?"_ Matt asks, concerned. She shrugs, still clinging onto him. "Didn't he know you were my sister?"

"Yeah. I think he actually knew who I was- and a girl- from the beginning. Like Shiro did."

"Duh," Matt agrees. "The Holt looks don't lie."

"Nobody else at the Garrison figured it out!" she insists.

"Yeah, I'll never overestimate them again," he says. "He still didn't...try?"

"I mean, he might've. But he was always with Shiro. And when he wasn't, I was with..."

"Lance and Hunk," Matt finishes for her. "Who don't like him."

"They like him!" Pidge crosses her arms over her chest. "We're a team."

"Yeah, they just convinced you he was a loner, and Lance kept trying to be his rival, and they just generally weren't too inviting for Keith to seek out," Matt describes, raising an eyebrow.

She nods, looking guilty again.

"Wow," he says cheerfully, "I'm going to kick their asses."

 

\---

 

"Hey, assholes!" Matt says, smiling dangerously as he storms onto the bridge with Pidge trailing behind him.

"Excuse me?" Hunk says. "Is- Is that a normal Holt greeting, because usually Pidge only says that when I accidentally got food goo in her tech, but that happens when she leaves it in the kitchen-"

"No, Hunk," says Pidge. "He's mad."

"He's _pissed,"_  Matt confirms.

Lance is looking a little nervous. Smart kid. "About _what?"_

"Keith," Matt and Pidge say in unison.

"Are you still on this?" Shiro says, and Matt whirls on him.

"And you, what the fuck is _your_ problem? Yes I'm still 'on this,' Keith is my _friend!_ " he snarls. "Apparently he isn't anybody else's!"

"Whoa, dude, what? We like Keith!" Lance exclaims.

"Um," Hunk says, "dude, you're always talking about how much you hate him."

Lance flaps a hand. "That doesn't mean anything."

"It meant something to Keith, I promise you!" Matt snaps at him. "I happen to know for a fact that Keith can count the friends he's had in his _entire life_ on one hand!"

Lance only shrugs. "Yeah, he's like, a loner. Lone wolf." He makes finger guns at Hunk, who looks dubious.

"...You realize lone wolves starve and die, right?" Pidge asks. "They're social animals."

"What, really?" He blinks at her. "I mean, metaphors aren't perfect-"

"One time my mom and I sent Matt homemade peanut butter cookies at school and Keith ate half of them and then cried on Matt's bed for an hour," Pidge blurts.

Hunk looks at her like she's crazy. "How do you know that?"

"...It kind of turns out, Matt was friends with Keith at the Garrison?" Pidge says sheepishly. "Only, he always called him Bambi, because he reminded him of a baby deer."

"It was the giant dark eyes and skinny legs," Matt agrees, and then gets back to glaring.

His sister continues, "So Matt had told me a whole lot about _Bambi,_ without mentioning that his real name is _Keith._ And uh, the gist of it is that-"

"You guys are fucking idiots," Matt finishes for her. "And I wish I could kick both of your asses."

Shiro has been listening to them with a strange expression, which flattens into something irritated. "And how is this relevant right now?"

"I'll tell you what's relevant right now!" Matt turns and stomps over close to him, straightening up to his full height, which is actually only a few inches shorter than Shiro now. "What the _hell_ happened to you? Because the Shiro _I_ know would never have let Keith go on such a long, dangerous mission, alone, much less not even cared about where he _was!"_

"We've both changed, Matt," Shiro snaps, curling his lip in an expression Matt has never seen on him before. "I suggest you learn to deal with it." Matt doesn't miss the way the others flinch back just slightly. If Shiro sees it too, he doesn't react to it.

Matt's not as physically imposing as Shiro but he bares his teeth at him anyway, just barely biting back some comment about the arena he knows he'd regret no matter _how_ much Shiro has changed.

 _"What_ is going on here?" Princess Allura says, striding into the room, followed by a tall multicolored Galra.

"We're talking about Keith," Pidge says quickly, correctly predicting that Matt was going to say something much more aggressive.

"Ah." Allura's imposing stance seems to deflate slightly. "Yes, we all miss him."

The Galra looks at her oddly. Matt turns to him. _"You,_ you're with the Blade-"

"That's Kolivan," Pidge interjects quietly.

"-I want you to tell me where Keith is. Now."

'Kolivan' looks even more nonplussed. "I was under the impression he'd chosen to remain here with Voltron."

"What?" says Hunk. "No, he went on a deep cover mission with you guys!"

He snorts. "Keith? Deep cover? The boy has trouble following orders, Yellow Paladin. He's very poorly suited to that kind of operation. Besides, he said Voltron needed him."

"He said the _Blade_ needed him," Pidge says.

"Oh my fucking god," Matt says. "That little motherfucker. He _left."_

 

\---

 

Keith has his ship floating in orbit around an out-of-the-way moon while he double-checks his supplies. He's still getting the hang of how much GAC is worth- for civilians it varies a lot by the resources of a particular sector, and the trick is knowing where to buy what- so he hasn't been able to plan his budget as tightly as he did on Earth.

He's got the medical kits and rations he'd been gradually pilfering from Voltron and the Blade for the past couple months, enough fuel for a few more jumps, and the measly amount of leftover GAC he has after downgrading from the small, fast, well-built Olkari vessel to something slower but more livable and nondescript.

He'd rather not start showing his face right away, but there's really no way around it. He's broke and his supplies aren't going to hold out for long.

(For the first time in his life, he's not sure he doesn't want them looking for him. Sure, it'd be easier if they didn't, but- if they at least cared enough to look for him, to wonder where he had gone, to ask him why he left-)

If anyone comes looking for him, he reminds himself firmly, it'll be the Blade of Marmora. He's sure as hell not planning on leaking any information that could compromise the Coalition, but he has no way to prove that to them. He's fought them once, when the field was level and they were mostly just trying to wear him down, and even _then_ he nearly died… His only hope is to stay off their radar for as long as possible. With any luck he's a low priority.

(Maybe he should invest in a change of clothes? The red jacket would be a dead giveaway if anyone came looking for him with a description- but, no, so would his species, and he can't do much to hide that. Maybe a hood- no, a hood would be a dead giveaway all by itself that he's somebody with something to hide. Maybe on the run from the Empire, as opposed to the Voltron Coalition, but if a bounty hunter caught his scent and thought he seemed like a good prospect, that's a complication he really doesn't need. Keith is running from too many people- too many _things-_ already. Blending in is the best thing he can do.)

Keith flips his knife back and forth in his hand, transforms it into a sword once and then back again. If anything would make him stand out, it's this knife. Luxite, product of lost Daibazaal, and a pretty shiny object in general. A shopkeeper on a random swap moon had been able to pick it out as something remarkable immediately, and he's not looking to get chased by mall security again any time soon.

Or, more likely, the Blade of Marmora out for his blood.

However, it's still inevitable that he'll need to fight someone at some point- it's just been that way his whole life, whether on Earth at the Garrison or in the desert, or here in the depths of space, lost without a team and without Shiro.

He left the black bayard back on the Castle of Lions, obviously. It belongs to Shiro, just like it always has. And for all the reasons he's already gone over, he can't whip out his remaining weapon on some space mugger, much less transform it into the wicked blade he's grown rather fond of.

It's time to go knife shopping.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We made a small change to Chapter 1. Nothing actually important, but it'll be relevant next chapter. A particular kind of cookie for anyone who notices the difference!

"Okay," Pidge says, rubbing a hand over her eyes. "So a ship _did_ go missing from one of the Olkari's docking bays around here- it was a fast little courier, but not their fastest, not something they'd normally notice was missing..."

"That's definitely Keith," Matt says immediately. "But I'm willing to bet that by now he's ditched it for something way less recognizable, and then probably ditched _that_ for something else."

Pidge blinks at him. "But if he double-blinded us all, why would he be bothering to cover his tracks like that?"

"Because he's a paranoid little bastard who also probably expected that his friends and teammates would notice he wasn't where he was supposed to be a lot sooner than they did." Matt tries not to sound too harsh, it's really not Pidge's fault- it's everyone's fault, it's _Shiro's_ fault- but he can't quite keep his vitriol down. They literally _lost_ Keith and _didn't even notice._ "Come on, sis, if I hadn't asked about him, would you guys have even realized any time soon?"

"...No," she admits. "I don't think we would have."

"Hey," Hunk interrupts, "we didn't have any reason to think Keith was just gonna peace out on everyone like that! He's always been really committed to fighting the Galra. When Pidge wanted to leave us to find you and your dad, he got super pissed about it."

 _Probably because he wanted to do the same but knew he couldn't,_ Matt thought. "Pidge...you were gonna leave Voltron for me? And Dad?"

She only shrugs. "Of course. Things hadn't really...gotten serious yet. But then they did on like that same day, so I had to stay. I figured I'd have a better shot at finding you guys that way anyway, since Voltron is way more mobile and has more resources than I would on my own, and besides, if we defeated the Galra you guys wouldn't be prisoners anymore anyway! And then it would be no problem."

Matt squeezes her in a one-armed hug. "I missed you too. Anyway." He turns back to the computer. "The only thing we can do right now is try and find where he hocked the Olkari ship, and then he would have had to find some kind of transport in the same place. Maybe he didn't buy a new ship of his own, we'd have to check if there was mass transit going in and out..."

"I hope Lance is having more luck with Red," Hunk says glumly. "This seems hopeless."

Pidge snorts. "Somehow, I doubt it. Red's always been _Keith's_ lion, no matter which bayard Lance is using."

 

\--

 

"Red," Lance says, staring pleadingly up at the Red Lion.

The Red Lion remains impassive.

"Red, please, Keith is AWOL and we're kind of all freaking out here-"

 **_Good,_ ** Red thinks at him, and he startles. "What? What do you mean, _good?"_

 **_Good that you finally noticed,_ ** she says, smugly.

"You _knew?"_

**_Of course I knew. He is my chosen paladin._ **

"What? C'mon, what about me?"

He feels Red's snarl reverberate through his head. **_This is not about you. Not now._ **

He swallows. "Okay, so I didn't know he's secretly a mushy guy, why are you so mad? How was _I_ supposed to know!"

 ** _I am angry at you ALL!_** She _roars,_ in his head, but it might as well be out loud for how much it overwhelms him.

Almost as much as a moment later when Red fills his mind with the image of his own face, wearing a cleansing mask and a towel on his head, scowling and flinging accusations at Keith.

 _"No, I was just-"_ -looking for answers, a voice that sounds something like Keith finishes, I was trying to find out where I'm _from_ , I just want to know what's _wrong_ with me-

 _"No, I was just,"_ his own voice parrots mockingly back at him. It hits him like a punch in the gut.

There's other stuff, too, that goes by faster. Tiny things. Nothing that would hurt too bad on its own, not even all of it from Lance, but when you add it up, when it comes at just the wrong time, when you hear it over and over again-

 _"I guess it's like Ryner said,"_ Pidge says contemplatively. _"We're all made up of the same cosmic dust."_ It's a line _Lance_ has heard a million times before, but-

 _"So... that means we're all related,"_ Keith says, and the idea is painfully novel. _"This ship, those stars, the Olkari."_ He pauses, and Lance abruptly remembers where this memory goes next. _"Even the Galra."_ Even him.

 _"Uh-oh, I think Keith just blew his own mind,"_ Hunk jokes, and everyone laughs.

Except Keith. _Stupid, stupid, stupid-_

Lance sits down hard and puts his face in his hands.

"We really did mess up, huh."

 **_Indeed,_ ** Red says.

One of his own memories comes to the surface of the water, him looking at Black through the fog-

 _"But now we gotta fix it,"_ his own voice says.

"Blue?" he mutters hopefully, but there's no response. He looks up at Red. "Okay. How do I fix this?"

Red huffs. **_You leave him alone._ **

"Wasn't that kind of the problem in the first place? Us not, y'know, reaching out to him?"

 **_In a way,_ ** she admits. **_But I think it is rather too late for such a meager overture! He is out of your reach now, and until he wishes otherwise, I will not help you change that._ **

"Oh." Lance droops. "So...he doesn't _want_ us to come after him?"

 **_Not_ ** **all** **_of you._ **

He can't help rolling his eyes. "Shiro again, huh? Eesh, it's always about him with Keith! What is even up with that?"

There is an overwhelming sense of incredulity from the Red Lion. She doesn't articulate it with words, but he gets the idea anyway, like "I'm an extra-dimensional robot lion, and even I know what is 'up with that'."

Lance pouts at her. "That's not fair! Keith was your paladin for months, he-"

 **_Keith_ ** **is** **_my paladin, young one._ ** **You** **_are Blue's, still._ **

"...What about Allura?"

 **_The Princess is a good substitute,_ ** Red admits grudgingly. **_But never doubt that you were and are Blue's first choice, as Keith is mine._ **

"Oh." Lance can't help feeling a bubble of warmth at that confirmation, and sure enough, he feels a cool, gentle touch on the edge of his mind- Blue is still there. She's just letting Red borrow him for a while, like he's letting Allura borrow her. "But- but if we got Keith back, then you could have him as your paladin again! I could go back to Blue, everything would be normal again!"

 **_Not everything,_ ** Red rumbles, angry again suddenly, but much more than before. Lance has a fleeting image of Shiro, glaring with such disapproval, and the bottom drops out of his stomach.

"I- I know Shiro is kind of different since he came back, but that can't be enough to keep Keith away..." he says. "Aren't we his friends too?"

Red snorts, as much as someone can do that telepathically. He has that image of his own accusing face again. "Right. Definitely...that's definitely my bad."

He gets another feeling from Red, a distinct message of "No shit, Sherlock." Jeez, she sure sounds like Keith.

"But how am I supposed to apologize and make it up to him if he isn't here and you won't help us find him?"

**_You should have thought of that before he was driven away._ **

"Oh, come on, Red!"

Keith's lion doesn't respond again.

 

\--

 

Keith shoves his hands deeper into the pockets of his nondescript tan coat. Head low, walking fast but not too fast down an alley, he feels like every cliche about the hero who's gone on the lam. Except he's no hero- not anymore.

He's got more GAC in his pockets than he did a few days ago, after he caught wind of somebody offering a hefty sum to get a particular contraband item from this asteroid to a nearby space station in six vargas or less. Keith's new ship isn't the fastest, but with some tricky stunts he's sure nobody sane could have or would have pulled off, he'd done it. And now he can take that payment and use it to flip that ship for something better, that has the speed required for what he can already tell is shaping up to be his new day job.

Smuggling. The noblest job for anybody bumming around the backwoods Galra Empire, living hand to mouth and job to job. And, recently, bar to bar. Keith isn't a drinker, but the shadier places where he can find jobs tend to involve a long counter and a lot of bottles and containers full of multicolored substances he isn't terribly inclined to try.

Yet, anyway. He'd caught a glimpse of Voltron on a whatever-they-call-the-TV-equivalent in the last one he'd gone to, and the desire to order something particularly potent had been almost overwhelming.

His former team is still on their show-pony propaganda tour. Even if they're drumming up support for the right side of this war, that's still what it is. A big spectacle selling a certain image to make people want to join up and send resources. There's no mention of the regular rebels or the Blade, the people who go on dangerous missions without giant robots to fight their battles. It's all Voltron, Voltron, Voltron.

Even halfway across the universe, he can't escape it.

Keith has to stop in the alley and lean his back against a dirty wall for a minute, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. It isn't really Voltron itself that he's trying to escape, and he knows it. Besides, he should be grateful they're busy- it means they're not looking for him, which would be both a waste of their time and a problem for him. Why would they look, anyway? He's not a paladin anymore. They don't need him. The Blade doesn't need him.

The Blade, who _makes_ knowledge about their organization a life or death matter. Who had been willing to kill him over a knife he knew nothing about. Whose inner workings- their extensive information networks, their absolute dedication to the mission at any cost- he's learned all too well in the past few months.

So, he's keeping his head down.

Keith hopes that despite being one of them for a while, nobody, even Kolivan, actually got to know him well enough to expect him to turn to smuggling. On Voltron's part, there's definitely one person who would- but he doesn't care anymore, does he?

He takes a deep, shuddering breath. He's been avoiding thinking about that as much as possible, and doesn't intend to give up now. Shiro doesn't love him anymore, and even if Keith has accepted the truth of that, he's nowhere near actually making his peace with it. So he has to put it out of his mind, or risk having an emotional breakdown in a dirty alley on a dangerous backwoods planet.

Keith pushes off from the wall, shoves his hands back in his pockets, and keeps walking.

 

\--

 

"Okay." Matt steeples his fingers in front of his face. "I think we need to know more about the circumstances of Keith leaving."

Pidge has her own face buried in a pillow. One of her pet trash floofs bumps comfortingly against her temple. "What's there to know?" she says, muffled. "We were all terrible friends, so he left."

"Don't underestimate Keith," Matt says. "That by itself wouldn't have made him leave. Don't blame yourself that much. I promise there's no way it was really your fault. Especially not yours," he adds, thinking of Lance and Hunk's presumptions, and Shiro's callous attitude.

That alone may have been enough to drive Keith away. Not anything from the other paladins. If Shiro had still wanted Keith around, outright loathing from everyone else couldn't have made him leave.

It had been pretty close to that at the Garrison, after all. And now Matt knows that once Shiro was gone and not coming back, Keith had dropped out, or gotten expelled, or most likely just did things that he _knew_ would get him kicked out.

Shiro _and_ Matt had both been gone, his best and only friends. Matt dares to hope that if Pidge had found him sooner, his own friendly presence might have been enough to make Keith stay, especially because it would have led to Pidge learning the truth and befriending Keith herself. And because Matt would have had more time to knock some sense into this new, colder Shiro.

Matt surfaces from his gloomy what-ifs and turns back to his sister. "We should talk to that Blade guy again- Kolivan?" At Pidge's nod, he continues, "He was spending the most time around Keith before he left. He could have some insights."

She looks dubious. "I don't know if they were actually close..."

Matt flaps a hand at her. "That's irrelevant," he says. "Keith's observed behaviors could be useful."

"Okay." Pidge stands up. "I think he's here on the Castle now, he and Allura...and Shiro...were supposed to be having some kind of strategy meeting."

He nods a little grimly. It feels completely wrong, but Matt would really rather talk to Kolivan about Keith without Shiro there, looking on with unjust disapproval. "We'll have to try and catch him alone on his way out or something."

 

\--

 

Kolivan leaves the strategy meeting feeling not unduly frustrated. The coalition is growing slowly but steadily, and the knowledge the Blade has been collecting will help the fight immensely, and yet he cannot help but feel like his people are the only ones taking the former Red Paladin's sudden disappearance seriously for the potential liability it is.

He also cannot help the spike of irritation at the knowledge that the other Paladins of Voltron did not bother to confirm the whereabouts of one of their own. The hypocrisy of this is not lost on him, however, and so he bites his tongue.

He made the mistake of allowing Keith to liaise with Voltron on his own more and more often. Kolivan had trusted the boy to be thorough and professional- while on a mission, he couldn't seem to follow orders to the letter to save his own life, sometimes literally, but he was meticulous in all other aspects of his work for the Blade. It was only now that Kolivan realized that trust had allowed the boy to make plans in secret.

Kolivan is not a fool. He knew from the start that Keith was not suited to the Blade, and yet he allowed him in. He saw how every mission distanced the boy further from his rightful team, and yet he kept bringing him on them. He should have put a stop to all of it immediately, insisted Keith remain with Voltron where he was truly needed- where he _belonged._ Or so it had seemed. Evidently Keith himself did not feel that way.

"Kolivan!" He turns to the Green Paladin and her brother as they approach. "We need to talk to you about something."

Their faces have that twisted quality that he's learned, on humans, means they are agitated over something. He inclines his head for them to continue.

"Maybe we should take this somewhere more private," the brother says, alert and wary, like he expects someone undesirable to be listening in.

"We're not _hiding_ anything," the Green Paladin insists, despite glancing around in a much more obvious manner. "It's about Keith."

"We're trying to trace his location," the brother explains. "We think it'd help if we had a better idea of how he was acting before he went AWOL."

So Voltron is not letting the matter lie after all. "What do you need to know?"

"Well, your description of how he's been acting in general the past couple months is important, since I'm not trusting my own observations to tell the whole story anymore-" the Green Paladin's face wrinkles in a way that is reminiscent of Keith's expression when being reprimanded- "But we could also use your insight on more detailed stuff, since he hasn't actually been around much."

"You know, body language, sleeping habits," the brother interjects.

The Green Paladin looks at him over her shoulder. "If he's been running himself ragged, how much are sleeping habits going to help?" she asks at a lower volume Kolivan suspects he is not intended to hear.

"You forget that he basically lived out of our room half the time," the brother replies, at that same low volume.

Kolivan frowns slightly at them. "Keith slept in a manner similar to the rest of the Blade. He was ready for action at a moment's notice."

The brother is quiet for a moment. "Kept his armor and boots on all the time?"

"Yes. It's not mandatory, but many of our warriors exercise preparedness. A few of the others noted he also slept very lightly." Woke at the slightest noise and tossed around all night, a few others had _complained,_ and Kolivan had assumed it was a human behavior.

"How _often_ did he sleep?" the brother demands.

He raises an eyebrow at the tone, but answers nonetheless: "Not often. A few varga most nights. He preferred to be out on active missions, or else would be training."

"Crap," groans the brother. "Oh, that's not good."

"Is it not?" Kolivan shifts slightly. "I had been under the impression such behavior was ordinary for humans, even halfbloods like Keith." His stance hardens again as he notices someone else approaching behind the Green Paladin and her brother. Shiro.

"That depends on your definition of ordinary, and for whom," the brother grumbles.

"What are you talking about?" They both jump about a foot in the air at the sound of the Black Paladin's voice.

"Gah!" The Green Paladin yelps. "How long have you been standing there?" She shoots Kolivan a dirty look, as though she blames him for her lack of awareness.

"What's going on, guys?" Shiro asks. "We just finished up our strategy meeting, Kolivan needs to get back to the Blade."

Kolivan frowns at him. "I am in no rush at the moment. They wish," he notes the Green Paladin and her brother both making frantic gestures involving their hands moving horizontally across their throats, "to know about Keith's behavior while he was with the Blade."

"To try and find him?" Shiro's brow furrows in concern. "Pidge, Matt, I know we're all worried about Keith, but we have to prioritize. I'm sure he's fine."

"Well, I'm not." The brother crosses his arms over his chest. "And anyway, I'm not a Paladin, so I have plenty of time to look."

"And I wasn't needed anywhere else!" the Green Paladin adds. "The Empire is focusing on Lotor right now, we have time to try and find Keith."

Shiro sighs. "I know, Pidge, but that just means we need to take this opportunity to hit Zarkon while he's distracted. Keith would agree with that."

The brother rolls his eyes. "Keith would agree with a lot of things that he shouldn't, and you know it." Well, Kolivan can't argue with that.

Regardless, he has clearly gotten caught up in some argument about Voltron's chain of command, where he does not belong. "If you don't have any other questions, Green Paladin," he inclines his head towards her, and towards her brother, "I shall take my leave."

She looks frantic. "No, no, we have more questions! Matt-"

The brother- "Matt"? such odd names these humans have- only sighs. "Thanks, Kolivan. See you around."

Kolivan nods. "Lotor may be the Empire's main objective at this point, paladins of Voltron, but that does not mean we should grow complacent for even a moment. I assure you they will not." And they would likely refocus on Voltron in the near future, since wherever he was, the renegade prince would either be captured and executed or else find some way to give his father's forces the slip, and soon.

 

\--

 

Sincline flew through space at a speed unmatched by any of the Empire's ships, and yet it still felt as though Zarkon's army was nipping at their heels. Nonetheless, even their new fugitive status wasn't enough to overpower the shock and delayed pain hanging over Lotor and his Generals after what he had done. What he'd had to do.

"Lotor," Ezor says finally, "what the hell was that?" It's unsurprising that she's the first one to regain her voice. Acxa has always been the most practical among them, but something like Narti's death would cut her deeply.

 _"That_ was saving our lives," Lotor responds, trying to keep his voice steady and calm.

"How so?" Acxa is very quiet, but she sounds less angry than Ezor. He'll take it.

"Haggar got her claws into Narti," Lotor says tightly. "There was nothing else I could do. No...way to save her." He'd had _no choice._ "So I saved the rest of us instead."

"You're sure of that," Zethrid says, voice flat.

"It's either that, or she betrayed us," he replies, feeling like a traitor to Narti's memory just saying it. "I sensed the witch's presence in her."

"Narti wouldn't have done that," Acxa says firmly.

"Then there you have it," Lotor murmurs. "I can assure all of you, I have not betrayed us either. There was no other choice."

There's a long pause, and then Ezor growls in frustration. "What are we going to do now, Lotor? You're the Empire's most wanted! We all are!"

"Voltron, eat your heart out," Zethrid snorts, but there's no real humor in it.

"Hm. I have no doubt that my father and his witch will soon redirect their attentions back to Voltron," Lotor says grimly. "Whether that is because we have managed to throw them off our scent, or because we have all been captured and executed, is up to us."

"I vote for the first one," Zethrid says immediately.

"Seconded," Ezor adds. "I'd really rather not be publically executed or sent into the arena."

Zethrid makes a noise.

"I'm sure it would be the public execution!" Ezor says quickly. "Come on, we're traitor Prince Lotor's top generals, no way they'd do anything less!"

"They use the arena to execute people, too," Zethrid mutters.

"It's not going to do us any good dwelling on it," Acxa says. She takes an audible breath and lets it out slowly. "Lotor, what's the plan?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is Red showing Lance some of Keith's memories an invasion of privacy? Mmmmmm, probably. But she's a ten thousand year old giant psychic robot lion, and boundaries are for chumps.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update took longer than expected since Destiny's immune system decided it hated her.

"I thought the boots thing was just because he was living in the desert," Hunk says, kneading bread dough the way some people wring their hands. He's never been so glad that the Castle has a fantastic kitchen, honestly. "You know, scorpions and stuff."

"I mean, sort of?" Matt says from the other side of the counter. "He grew up getting bounced around, I guess, and he got used to being ready to run."

Pidge is perched on the end of the counter, which he's tolerating because he loves her. "You  _ guess?" _ she says, focusing on the least upsetting part of that sentence. "I thought you were our Keith expert."

"He was always more comfortable talking about it with Shiro. I think it was something they had in common, honestly, but I just picked up hints."

Hunk lets out a noise of frustration. "Keith hates being alone, Shiro apparently had a bad home life… Pidge, do you have a secret sad backstory too?"

"I mean, I got bullied in school before the Garrison, but that's it. You?"

"Same, pretty much." Hunk slaps the dough back onto the counter, and blue space flour puffs up around it. "If Lance has something, I've never heard about it. He's the baby of his family and they treated him like it. Like, he's got his issues, but nothing like Keith's..." Hunk is ashamed to admit he'd never thought about it a whole lot beyond "he's the emo one." He'd been more nosy than sympathetic regarding the revelation of Keith's Galra heritage. He'd thought making jokes about it would help make it less weird and uncomfortable, but maybe not.

Matt frowns at them. "You don't need to share trauma to be friends with someone. That happened between Keith and Shiro after they'd already gotten pretty close." 

"I know, man, I just don't wanna get blindsided again," Hunk says. Which isn't really true. Now that he's thinking about it, the signs had all been there that Keith had way more to him. He just hadn't looked closer, had taken everything at face value. Like, y'know, an idiot. Or Lance. 

"And I want to  _ understand." _ Pidge tugs on her hair. "I- I want to apologize to him. But I can't do that yet, so the best I can do is try and learn about what I didn't bother to before." 

"You gotta stop beating yourself up, Pidgeon. You didn't do it on purpose and you didn't know any better." Matt pats his sister's arm. 

"Since when has that been an excuse?" Pidge grumbles. "We're  _ Holts.  _ Knowing better is practically a family tradition."

Matt snorts. "Yeah, about physics and hacking and abstract math. Not your teammate having a tragic backstory."

"It's hardly the tragic backstory," Pidge says. "I meant about his whole personality. Y'know, the lone wolf thing being bullshit." She shoots Hunk a look over her shoulder. 

He sighs and covers the dough with an embroidered Altean handkerchief thing that definitely isn't meant to substitute for a towel, and then shoves on some oven mitts. "How was I supposed to know? I'm a Garrett and our most important family tradition is exactly what I'm doing right now." Cooking and baking with people you love, putting your feelings into the food. He leans down and opens the oven, and removes several trays of grayish cookies. 

Pidge sniffs the air like a bloodhound. "Hunk...what are  _ those?" _

"Oh, yeah." He rubs the back of his head, still wearing the oven mitts. "I, uh, I did feel pretty bad about Keith, so I decided to figure out what to make him when he's back. And you mentioned the peanut butter cookies, so I've been figuring out a space substitution..." Hunk has spent the past few days of downtime going over the possibilities and testing recipes. He has high hopes for these.

She shrieks and pounces on the tray, only to be grabbed by the back of her shirt by Matt. "They are still hot and they are  _ still attached to the tray," _ he says. "Slow your roll." Hunk is thankful because now he won't have to slap Pidge's hands away himself. Really, it's awesome all around having Matt with them. 

"But peanut butter cookies," she whines. "It's been forever, Matt!"

"It's been even longer for me," he points out. "But I want to actually  _ enjoy  _ them and not burn my mouth on the first bite and then I can't even taste the rest of them."

Pidge is about to open her mouth to retort again when the kitchen door slides open and Lance walks in, followed by Allura, looking curious.

"Hey!" he says. "I heard Pidge scream. Did somebody touch her computer again?"

"No." She scowls at him. "Hunk made  _ peanut butter cookies." _

"Holy crow," Lance says eagerly. "How did you manage that, buddy?"

"I haven't taste-tested this batch yet," Hunk warns. "And they're not  _ actual  _ peanuts. I went through all the samples I've picked up and found the nearest alien equivalent. You might have noticed they're gray." Maybe he could also finagle some kind of food coloring out of those herbs he'd tried- the taste was nothing like peanut butter, but the color had been right. 

Lance shrugs. "Who cares? Anything you bake will be awesome, unless it cracks our teeth and then we have to use them to power the teludav." 

Matt stares at him. "What."

He flaps a hand. "Long story. Well, okay, not really. What happened was-"

"What are peanut butter cookies?" Allura interrupts him, leaning over to sniff the tray curiously. "Pidge mentioned liking them, but did not further explain their nature." 

"Comfort food," Pidge says. "Cookies are usually sweet, but peanut butter is more savory. And eating cookies right out of the oven is like, the archetypal childhood experience. We used to make them with Mom all the time."

Allura smiles a little sadly. "That sounds like making suida bread on Altea."

"Ooh, what's that?" Pidge says, propping her chin in her hands. Matt leans in attentively.

"Well, suida are a relatively safe first animal to hunt, so…"

Lance slides over to Hunk while Allura and the Holts talk. "Peanut butter, huh?"

Hunk sighs. "Yep." He takes off just one oven mitt and places it carefully on the counter where he's spread out the Altean version of waxed paper. It may actually be waxed paper.    


"Because of...?"

"Yep." He opens a drawer with some extra vehemence and takes out a little spatula, and props the end of one of the cookie trays on the oven mitt, holding the other in his still-mitted hand, and starts scraping off cookies onto the counter. 

Lance rests his chin in his hand. "I miss Blue."

"Red still mad at you, huh?" Hunk says knowingly. Lance frowns at him, but he just keeps expertly removing the cookies. 

"I didn't tell you she was mad at me."

"No, you said she knows where Keith is but was refusing to tell you. That kind of implies she's not too happy." Lance had come into Hunk's room after his first try with the Red Lion, after they'd realized Keith was actually missing. They knew that if anyone could find him, it would be Red. And of course, it turns out she'd never lost him in the first place. That's just them. 

Lance groans a little. "That's an understatement. She really told me off," he admits. "I...deserved it."

"Ouch." Red must have really read him the riot act for Lance to say that. Hunk puts the empty tray in the sink and picks up another to divest of its goodies. 

"She was pretty insistent that she's mad at everyone else, too," Lance says awkwardly. "Especially, um, Shiro."

"Ohh, boy," Hunk mutters. He should have known. 

"-and that's when we light them on fire!" Allura says brightly, finishing her story that they hadn't listened to. Hunk feels a twinge of guilt- Allura's planet and all her traditions are  _ gone.  _ The least they can do is listen to her stories. At least some of them did- Pidge's eyebrows are in her hairline.   


"That's the coolest thing I've ever heard," Matt says reverently. 

"It was always a delight," Allura agrees, a much more genuine smile on her face.

"What was?" Lance says, looking over. 

Pidge rolls her eyes. "If you wanted to know, you should have listened the first time." He makes a face at her.

"Okay," says Hunk, cutting that argument off at the pass, "I think these first ones are cool enough to-"

"Dibs!" Pidge yells, scrambling across the counter to grab a cookie. Matt grabs her arm before she can shove the entire thing into her mouth. She glares at him but takes a more reasonable bite. 

"How is it?" Hunk asks anxiously. "Are they close enough?"

Pidge doesn't reply. She just swallows the bite and stays silent.

"Pidge?" Matt asks. He touches her shoulder, and she finally lifts her head. 

"It's good," she whispers, and continues crying. 

Matt immediately tugs her in all the way for a tight hug, and Pidge shoves the rest of the cookie in her mouth before letting out a small sob. 

"So..." Hunk says cautiously, "approved?"

"They taste almost like Mom's," Pidge mumbles into Matt's shoulder. His eyes go wide and he grabs a cookie of his own, shoving it in his mouth whole like he'd just stopped Pidge from doing. 

"Oh," Matt chokes out. "Yeah, they do."

Lance hesitantly reaches out to take one, and Hunk does the same, while Allura hovers by Pidge and Matt worriedly. 

"Wow," Lance says around a mouthful, "great job, Hunk."

Both Holts are crying now. 

"You'd better get a lot of milk from Kaltenecker," Hunk says shakily, "cuz I'm gonna make more."

 

\--

 

They're all sitting in the living room later, trying to watch an Altean comedy and cheer up. The humor isn't terribly accessible, but the normalcy- unattached to any aching memories of home- is helping. Matt and Pidge are sitting close together on one end, and Lance sits between Hunk and Allura a few cushions away. 

"I'm just saying," Lance is in fact saying, "Earth movies are definitely the best."

"Altean cinema-" Allura begins hotly, before Hunk cuts her off. 

"Dude, you can barely understand these Altean movies. There's no way you can pass judgment on their quality. Pidge's translations are great," he beams at her, obviously trying to make her feel all the way better, which Matt appreciates, "but they're like amateur anime subs. I keep expecting one of the translation notes to say 'keikaku means plan'." 

Pidge sniffs- not sniffles. "Excuse me," she says, "but I would never do that. I would just translate it as plan."

"It doesn't matter," Lance jumps back in. "Nothing is ever going to top Star Wars."

Hunk rolls his eyes. "Lance, buddy, for the last time-"

"I am  _ too _ a Han Solo type!" Lance beats him to the punch. This is obviously an argument they've had before. "You're my Chewie, Allura is almost  _ literally _ Princess Leia, and Pidge is R2D2!" He glances over at the two Holts. "Matt, we finally have a C3PO!"

He snorts. "I'm comfortable with that." Pidge is definitely salty enough to be Artoo. 

"Dude," Hunk says again, "you are  _ way _ more Luke than Han. If anyone's the Han Solo around here, it's Keith."

"Huh." Musing is a rather  _ a- _ musing look on Lance, Matt notes. "He  _ does _ have that whole edgy criminal vibe going on. But he's also got the samurai honor thing. Could you really see Keith as a smuggler?"

Matt blinks. And then turns to look at his sister. "Pidge. I have an idea."

"What is it?" Lance says nervously. "If you're going to suggest we film a reenactment of Star Wars, I already said that, like, fifty quintants before you got here."

"And we said no  _ then, _ too," Pidge mutters. "What's your idea, Matty?" 

"We need to check every smuggling network we can find for Keith. God, it's so  _ him." _

"Oh," says Hunk. "I really hope we don't find him petrified in carbonite."

 

\--

 

Keith ducks and weaves between asteroids and laser bolts. Take this job, they said. It's low profile, they said, and you won't have to worry about getting much attention. And now he's playing a game of cat and mouse with a whole squad of Galra fighters, and for the first time in a long time, he's the mouse. 

He doesn't have the cat anymore. Either of them. Instead he has this shabby, ungainly ship- it's selling point was just how fast it is, despite its size and shape. Not as fast as Red, but there's nothing in the universe as fast as Red. It's more than enough for a smuggler, or so he  _ thought _ . But the Galra fighters keep gaining on him, and he hasn't managed to lose them among the asteroids yet. If he hasn't by the time they've reached open space again, he may, in fact, be completely fucked. The one really important thing this ship lacks is firepower.

Much less the ability to spit lava. Or treat fighters like chewtoys. All Keith has now is his own wits and his piloting skills- just like always. None of these Galra pilots could even hope to match him in flying, but their ships are just as fast, and  _ they _ aren't also dodging a barrage of deadly lasers. This ship's speed also comes at the expense of decent shielding. He never thought he'd miss  _ Red's _ ability to take a hit. 

He  _ used _ to be able to hide behind nothing, back at the Garrison, when he snuck out on his bike. It was just open desert for miles around, but the trick wasn't actually to get somewhere they couldn't find you, it was to get somewhere so difficult to reach that they wouldn't  _ bother- _

Oh.  _ Duh. _

He oversteers on the next turn and rams the side of his ship into an asteroid. The ship groans unhappily, and he knows he's gonna be paying for that later, but it works like he'd hoped. Asteroids start rebounding off each other, and pretty soon the field is just as tricky to navigate as he remembers from chasing Rolo and Nyma. And these Galra fighters aren't exactly the Red Lion, either.

Keith forces himself to be sloppier with his steering, trying to convince them he's going to get crushed by one of these rocks without their help.

It takes grazing the ship a few more times- he feels every shudder in his bones and he can't believe his goddamn luck that he hasn't broken anything critical yet- but eventually they peel off, obviously deciding to let the asteroids do their job. He smirks. Yeah, just about anyone probably would end up like a bug on a windshield in this mess. But when it comes to flying, Keith isn't just anyone. 

And that's true no matter what he's piloting. 

Though he's not going to pretend this isn't a lot harder than it was with Red. Most things are, after all. But he could have done this before Voltron, and he can still do it after. So what if the controls aren't quite responding the way they should, or if there are warnings flashing at him about things he can't afford to stop and fix right now. It's fine. He's fine.

Or at least he will be if his battered ship can hold on long enough to deliver his cargo- and  _ if  _ there's a decent repair depot at the drop-off, or at least someone willing to tow him for a fee that isn't  _ too _ exorbitant. And  _ if _ he doesn't run into any more trouble on the way. 

So he's basically screwed.

He makes it about half an hour further than he expected before the engine finally gives out on him. It doesn't so much shudder to a halt as it does cough twice and then give up the ghost immediately. The internal systems are still functioning, at least, so he has life support.  _ (Unlike Shiro, slowly dying and alone for a week, _ his mind helpfully supplies.) According to his radar- and  _ only _ his radar, his navigation systems are looking a little scrambled right now- there's an outpost within signalling distance, but he's kind of hard fucking pressed to send out a distress call to an unknown listener when he's got this kind of cargo on his ship. Then again, that will be kind of irrelevant pretty soon, since as long as he's floating aimlessly through space, this shit ain't getting delivered. 

Keith grits his teeth and stabs in the code to send out a distress signal to anyone who's listening. Maybe that outpost is empty, or nobody on it cares. He wouldn't be surprised. Of course, if it happens to be swarming with more Galra soldiers, they'll certainly come pick him up- and then search him and his ship, potentially identifying him as a renegade (a former Blade and even more former Paladin of Voltron, no less), and  _ definitely _ identifying the contraband he's ferrying. He's not actually  _ outfitted _ for smuggling yet. No way to hide whatever goods he's got in the cargo hold. He'd been planning on saving up from a few lower-profile jobs to get the necessary upgrades to his ride, but obviously that isn't working out. 

He stares at the blinking error lights on his dashboard, waiting for anyone to show. They're just slightly out of sync. He doesn't notice it at first, but the one on the right starts to drag behind like a bad leg. When he catches himself wondering how long it'll take them to sync up again, he tears his eyes away and gets out of the pilot's chair. He staggers, catches himself on the wall, and abruptly realizes he's shaking and probably has been for a while. Whatever.

The spacesuit he pulls on is uncomfortably similar to the one they found Shiro in. It's just the standard design for anyone who doesn't have access to the resources of the Castle of Lions or the Galra Empire, apparently, but wearing it makes his skin crawl all the same.

It's bulky and ill-fitting and weighs awkwardly on his shoulders. It's miles better than what they had back on Earth, but he's too used to the sleek armor of Paladins and Blades, made for ease of movement. He wishes, just for a second, that he'd taken a suit of Paladin armor with him, and then dismisses it for the stupid, counterproductive thought it is.

Keith does up the last fastening on the suit, sighs, and opens the hatch to drift outside. 

Here's the thing. He was a pretty damn good mechanic back on Earth. He could take his bike apart and put it back together better than before- he  _ did, _ more times than he had bothered to count. He had known almost every ship at the Garrison inside and out by the time everything went to shit. But he's not Hunk- it doesn't come to him like breathing. He can't just look at a machine and  _ get _ it. He needs to study it, take it apart and figure out how it works. And at the Garrison, when he couldn't do that, he'd had help. 

_ "Dude," Matt says, kicking his leg from across the bed. "You've been staring at that same diagram for twenty minutes, are you okay?" _

_ He flops onto his back, stretching out, and drops the textbook to his chest with a groan. "I'll be fine once I get this." _

_ Matt leans over him and plucks the textbook out of his hands. Keith only makes a halfhearted grab for it, then huffs out a breath and waits. _

_ "Oh, Bambi,  _ honey, _ this is the easiest chapter in the course-" The punch that connects with Matt's leg is decidedly less halfhearted. He laughs as he swats Keith's hand away from the textbook. "Alright, alright, lemme see if I can help." _

None of the machinery he's staring at is making any sense. He should have taken the time to really look the thing over before he started taking dangerous jobs like this, food money be damned. He should have paid more attention when Hunk was working on Rolo's ship, he's almost certain it was a similar model, even if it was larger. Hell, he should have been helping more with the refugees on Olkarion- anything he could have picked up, anything at all- it might have been just what he needs to know right now, to save his own damn skin. 

He's got life support and rations, so he's not going to be dying any time soon, but if that distress signal of his actually hits anyone, and they aren't miraculously from the same underworld he's been bumming around in, Keith is screwed. But if he can't fix this ship, and no one gets the signal, then either he's going to run out of food and life support and die, or else another ship is going to see him, and then he's running on the same crappy odds. Regardless, there's no point in him wasting oxygen by floating around out here when there's nothing he can do. 

Once Keith is back in the cockpit, he collapses in the pilot's chair and puts his head in his hands. It always comes back to this. Before he'd started at the Garrison and been led to believe he actually had a future. When Shiro was dead on a rock billions of miles away from Earth. When Shiro was gone, _again,_ without even the weak sense of closure he'd had before. When Regris died because of the call _he_ made. Every time Shiro looked at him with nothing but frustration and disappointment. _There's nothing he can do._

Stillness and inactivity have never suited Keith. In the desert, he'd quickly become obsessed with his study of the Blue Lion's energy, and during Shiro's absence, he'd been occupied first by his relentless search and then by his struggle to be the Head of Voltron. And after that, it was part of why he'd thrown himself so intensely into missions with the Blade. 

Getting to spend time away from the Team that didn't really want or need him, and a changed Shiro who seemed to feel the same way, was just a bonus. 

And now he has nothing. That's familiar too. 

Keith doesn't know how long he sits hunched in that chair, pressing his palms against his eyes like it'll make his thoughts shut up. He's too wrapped up in them, as evidenced by the way he startles when there's a cheerful  _ ping _ from the console. 

Another ship is hailing him. 

He picks up the call without hesitation- or much thought.  _ "Hello?"  _ comes an unknown voice. It doesn't sound military, thank God.  _ "We received a distress signal from this quadrant. Please come in." _

"I'm here!" he blurts out. "It was me, I'm here!"

_ "What's the problem?" _

"I..." Was on the run from Empire cops and purposefully allowed my ship to get the crap beaten out of it by a bunch of asteroids to avoid them. "I got caught up in an asteroid belt and my ship is pretty badly damaged. I...need a tow to the nearest repair station."

There's a brief pause.  _ "Are your thruster nozzles calibrated?" _

Keith inhales sharply. "No," he says. "They're operating at minimum capacity."

_ "Oh, thank Shola,"  _ says the rebel on the other end.  _ "Are you delivering the medical supplies we need?" _

"Yep. Some Empire ships got on my tail and this happened when I was outrunning them."

_ "You outran Empire fighters? In  _ that _ thing?" _

"Hey, my ship's fine." It's not like Keith is particularly attached to the modest freighter he got for smuggling, but nobody's allowed to talk shit about  _ his _ ship. 

_ "Aside from being nonfunctional, sure."  _ The rebel snickers.  _ "We'll give you a tow."  _

Their ship comes into view- it's far smaller than his, but looks powerful enough- and glides up close. A tractor-powered tether flies out of it and attaches to to the nose of his ship, and they're off. Keith breathes a heavy sigh of relief and slumps back in his seat. He's not dying today. 

Probably. Can't rule it out. 

It's not far to the rebel base he was heading for- it's galling to see how close he'd actually gotten to making it on his own, and then horrifying to realize he'd almost led the Galra straight to them. He'd tried taking a circuitous path through the asteroids, but apparently they'd played pinball with him in a way that actually put him back on course. 

The base, on a small, irregular moon, is small but bustling. And full of people in various states of injury- if Keith hadn't actually made it here with the supplies he was smuggling, then a lot of them would have had to go without, would have died. By bringing the supplies, he would have saved their lives. 

Instead he fucked it up, and had to be towed here. Sounds about right. 

Once the two ships have touched down in an empty part of the hangar, Keith climbs out and stands in the rebel base. He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks around the cavernous space. It's narrow, but has high ceilings- it's partially built into the rock surface of the moon. Two rebels emerge from the ship that towed him here, one shorter than him with mottled-green skin and the other a member of a three-eyed species he recognizes, whose planet Voltron had liberated from the Galra not long after first coming together. 

"Thanks for the tow," he says gruffly. "Supplies are in the back, do you have people who can unload them?"

"Of course," says the green alien. "Thank you, truly, for bringing them. We know this is a remote base near some difficult areas, and it can't have been easy to get them here."

"It was nothing," he mutters. "I mean, it's not like I actually managed it. You guys can see the state my ship's in."

The alien only shrugs, and walk away, presumably to get some other rebels to unload the ship. The three-eyed one- he thinks it's a female- remains behind, and steps forward. "Please believe me that the damage was worth it. We had great need of these supplies."

He nods. "I know. Uh, I just need to do a patch job, I guess, and then I'll be out of here. Gotta find someplace that can do real repairs."

"We could be of some assistance. There may have been a shortage of medicine and bandages, but there is plenty of-"

"No, thank you," Keith says quickly. "I really need to get going." Up closer, he recognizes more than just this alien's species. Her face is familiar, too.

And his concern about that is validated immediately when she leans forward further, examining his own face. And then her eyes widen, with terrible, terrible recognition. 

"You are the Red Paladin of Voltron," she says, awed, and he forces back a flinch.   


"No, I'm not."

"I have seen you before," she insists, stepping even closer. He fights the urge to step back. "You freed my planet."

The battle itself hadn't been particularly memorable, but afterward the people had nearly thrown themselves at Voltron, showering them with gifts of everything they could spare. Allura's hands had been full, trying to convince them without mortally offending them that Voltron didn't need so many of their precious resources. Keith still isn't sure if it was a hospitality thing or a life-debt thing. The way she's looking at him, he's afraid it's the latter.

"I'm not with Voltron," he says, the words clinging to the inside of his throat.

She takes another step towards him, and this time he does move back. She pauses, and searches his expression for something.

"I do not forget faces," she tells him, voice low. A chill runs up his spine.

He balls his hands into fists. "Please. You have to forget mine." He feels as ridiculous as he sounds. But he can't afford this. He's been covering his tracks but not well enough, and a slip-up like this could get him killed-

She leans back, expression unreadable. "Ah, I was mistaken," she says meaningfully. "You look so similar, but now I see the difference." He nods, numb, and she takes that as her cue to continue with a smile, "At least allow us to repair your ship for your trouble."

Something twists painfully in his chest. He remembers her people, insisting on sharing food and supplies even though they were running so dangerously low themselves. "No."

She actually looks upset by that. "But-"

"Please, just pay me." He can't meet her eyes.

Keith leaves as soon as he gets his money.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special mention for this chapter goes to Destiny, a terrifying stress baker and provider of the expertise shown in the first section- Hunk's cookie-removing method is her own! 
> 
> And remember, kids, outlines are your friend.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find [Destiny](http://tarvek-sturmvoraus.tumblr.com/) and [Space](http://magicalspacedragon.tumblr.com/) on tumblr.


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